This is a blog of someone who gets a little lost and bogged down in genealogy limbo; that hazy place in between "hobbyist" and professional. Hopefully it will become a source of info as well as a source of support for those who are also making their way through the maze of records and business know-how

Friday, September 17, 2010

Well, I'm still working on getting caught up after my Dad's passing last month. I've got 4 assignments to finish up, 2 for the NGS HSC and 2 for ProGen, my NGSQ group meets next week to discuss a great article by Stephanie Evans (which I'll try to post about soon), I'm getting indexed entries and photos from the project in Parke County, IN and now I've just agreed to be a coordinator for a future ProGen group. Yikes!

The two NGS HSC assignments I'm finishing are Lessons 7 and 11. Lesson 7 is on Church and Cemetery records and I had to order an FHL film to view the records of St Martin's Episcopal Church in Marcus Hook, Delaware County, PA then do an inventory of what was on the roll. It was definitely interesting reading, however there was an issue with the film notes from the familysearch website not matching what was supposed to be on the roll. But for the most part, I did get to see the hand-written entries naming the first vestrymen for the congregation in 1724 and various early 19th century entries for baptisms, marriages, and burials. Cool stuff there. The second part of this lesson was to make a cemetery map. This was one of the assignments I worked on back in June when I took my research trip to Parke County. I did a map for the Linebarger Cemetery which is just outside Rockville, IN. I had some weather and time issues however, so the map is not yet complete as far as getting all of the names and transcriptions but I hope to be able to finish it up in the spring.

Lesson 11, the second lesson I'm trying to get finished up, is the migration lesson. The first assignment is to print out an outline map or other map which you can then use to track the movements of a family group. I'll have to fill everyone in on this more later since I'm still in the middle of doing this but I'm using the movements of my Bromagem family for this one, showing their earliest known beginnings in Monongalia County, VA (now WV), then to Scott County, KY, and finally over to Greene and Darke Counties in OH and Randolph and Jay Counties in IN. The map is supposed to show the possible routes used to get to these locations as well and that is actually the part I'm researching now so I'll get back to that topic here once I'm finished with the assignment.

For ProGen, I'm working on the final 2 assignments of the group- the proof summary and the marketing plan. Initially I had thought to do the proof summary on the proving the parentage of Lillian Bromagen Stevens but once I got it all down, it ended up looking more like a case study than a proof summary. What that pretty much means is that there was no conflicting or indirect evidence. It all pretty much fell into place. The only real conflicting issue is the maiden name for her mother, which I've spoken about here in the past and which is an ongoing work-in-progress for me. So instead, I think I'm revisiting a different Bromagen issue for this assignment. I'll be going back over the work I did to prove that Lida Van Wormer was actually Eliza Jane Bromagen, sister of Lillian and eldest child of James Bromagen and Mary Jane Braden/Hawkins. Again, more on that when I know for sure which way I'm going :)